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The relationship between Tony Blair and News International was thrust into public view on Wednesday as an email recounting advice the former British prime minister gave the then-chief executive of the embattled media empire was read to a jury.

The July 2011 note from Rebekah Brooks to James Murdoch, head of the company’s U.K. operation, was a final piece of evidence presented by prosecutors in the trial of seven people charged in relation to phone hacking by journalists.

Blair indicated he would be willing to provide unofficial advice to both James Murdoch and his father, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, Brooks’ note said. There was a caveat, though: “needs to be between us.” She also said Blair suggested setting up an inquiry-style committee, and that he even provided practical tips for getting rest.

Four days after the email was sent, Brooks resigned. Two days after that, she was arrested.

Along with Brooks, six other former News International employees are on trial for charges ranging from conspiracy to hack phones to obstructing a police investigation. Among them is Andy Coulson, a one-time editor of the News of the World, who then became director of communications for Prime Minister David Cameron.

The prosecution has been laying out its case since last autumn. It alleges that reporters at the News of the World, hungry for scoops, hacked a huge number of phones with the consent of the paper’s management.

All seven defendants deny the charges. The trial is expected to last until mid-May, and the defence case is to begin Thursday. The Associated Press reported the strategy will be that Brooks and Coulson were unaware of phone hacking, and that they are not individually responsible for every story.

Should Brooks take the stand, it will be a remarkable moment.

The newspapers she edited, especially The Sun, are believed to hold considerable sway in political life, particularly for undecided voters. The paper’s endorsement of a party is considered an important election milestone; Blair gaining the confidence of The Sun ahead of the 1997 general election is considered a significant moment in British politics.

That spring, the tabloid, which still regularly sells more than two million papers a day, broke with its long tradition of calling for Conservative governments to tell its readers to vote for Blair’s Labour Party.

As the Guardian newspaper noted at the time, The Sun’s “change of allegiance is made more striking by the fact that owner Rupert Murdoch has always taken a direct part in the decision-making at every election.”

The relationship between the press and politicians has recently come under scrutiny. An inquiry into journalistic practices in the U.K. heard Blair and Brooks were friendly, and diary entries provided to it note about two dozen times that they met for lunch, dinner or drinks between 1998 and 2007.

After Labour left Downing Street, Brooks had regular contact with the resident who lives behind the famous black door: she often spoke with or texted Cameron, who was considered part of the so-called “Chipping Norton set,” named after the pretty Cotswolds town where many influential people have homes.

One text message that suggested Cameron and Brooks get together for a “country supper” made headlines last year when it was read to the Leveson inquiry. (Brooks’ husband, Charlie — also on trial — is a longtime friend of Cameron.)

Witnesses at the hacking trial have included a former News of the World journalist who said he was hired because of his skill at accessing the phones of the famous; celebrities such as Sienna Miller and Jude Law, who testified the press had “an unhealthy amount of information” about his life; and a police detective who told the court that the paper had hacked the phones of 282 people nearly 7,000 times.

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